1. Field
Example embodiments relate to an electrical device, and more particularly, to an antifuse and methods of operating and manufacturing the antifuse.
2. Description of the Related Art
An antifuse is an electrical device, which operates in the opposite way of a fuse. For example, whereas a fuse starts with a lower resistance state and then changes to a higher resistance state by a programming operation, an antifuse starts with a higher resistance state and changes to a lower resistance state by a programming operation.
Antifuses are used for various purposes, e.g., repair of defective cells, storage of chip identification, and circuit customization, in semiconductor memory or logic devices. For example, cells that are judged as defective among a relatively large number of cells of a memory device may be replaced with redundancy cells by antifuses. Consequently, the problem of decrease of yield due to defective cells may be overcome.
However, a voltage of at least 5 V may be required to program a conventional antifuse. Due to this relatively high programming voltage, off leakage current of a transistor may increase in a cell region and a peripheral circuit region, the reliability of the transistor may decrease, and the power consumption may increase.